Early evening summary
- Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has been chairing a meeting with leaders from the devolved administrations to discuss whether to change the special Covid rules agreed for Christmas. According to ITV Cymru’s Adrian Masters, another meeting is planned for tomorrow.
Welsh Govt source on the Christmas talks: “The leaders of the devolved administrations and Michael Gove met this evening to discuss the arrangements over the Christmas period. They will reconvene tomorrow to confirm the position”
— Adrian Masters (@adrianmasters84) December 15, 2020
And ITV’s Paul Brand says no decision has yet been taken.
No deal yet on whether Christmas rules should be changed. Devolved administrations have finished their call with Michael Gove without confirming any new arrangements. https://t.co/UJy9VOZjYX
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) December 15, 2020
PA Media also report talks are expected to resume on Wednesday. A Welsh government spokesman said: “The leaders of the devolved administrations and Michael Gove met this evening to discuss the arrangements over the Christmas period. They will reconvene tomorrow to confirm the position.”
The meeting was scheduled as the UK government came under increasing pressure to tighten the rules for the holiday period. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said Boris Johnson should order a rethink because taking the wrong decision now could have “severe” consequences. (See 1pm.) Two leading medical journals, the British Medical Journal and the Health Service Journal, said allowing up to three household to mix over Christmas, as planned, would be a “major error that will cost many lives”. (See 10.45am.) Before this afternoon’s meeting chaired by Gove, Downing Street said the rules were being kept under constant review. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, told MSPs that her government was considering whether the proposed rules should be tightened in the light of the emergence of a new variant of coronavirus, nine cases of which have been discovered in Scotland. (See 3.06pm.) But Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, told MSs (members of the Senedd, the Welsh parliament) that he was concerned that not allowing an easing of restrictions at Christmas could lead to a “free-for-all”. (See 2.28pm.) A YouGov poll suggests people think the government should abandon plans to relax the restrictions over Christmas by almost two to one. (See 5.30pm.)
That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Updated
Teachers should not have to administer rapid result tests in schools, say unions
Education unions have objected to the suggestion that teachers should be involved in administering the lateral flow tests (or rapid result tests) being rolled out in all secondary schools in England from January. (See 12.26pm.)
In its announcement the Department for Education said that, although staff would not have to give up time over the holidays to learn how to use the new tests, “existing staff meetings or inset days can be used for training as appropriate”.
Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said that although these tests could be “potentially helpful”, they were “not a panacea”. In a statement he went on:
The NASUWT will be seeking urgent further clarification from the DfE about how these tests are to be administered and by whom. The NASUWT is clear that it is not the responsibility of teachers or school leaders to undertake testing of pupils or employees and will be expecting the government to confirm that it does not expect teaching staff to carry out this work.
And Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT head teachers union, said in a statement that the government should consider getting volunteers to administer the tests, not teachers. He said:
Removing school staff from the classroom and retraining them to administer clinical tests is a deeply flawed proposal. Schools and parents alike will want every education professional focused on supporting pupils to catch-up on lost learning throughout the spring term.
The government must look at alternatives to asking school staff to administer these tests. One solution could be to use the volunteers who signed up earlier in the year to support the NHS. They could be trained, accredited and insured and then sent in to support schools. This could then be expanded further if it was seen to be successful.
According to new polling by YouGov, by a margin of almost two to one people think the government should abandon plans to relax Covid restrictions over Christmas. Some 57% of people said there should be no special arrangements for Christmas, while 31% said the rules should be loosened for five days over Christmas as planned.
This is broadly in line with the findings of an Ipsos MORI poll on the same topic (see 3.55pm), although YouGov, which posed the question in a different format, found even less support for the Christmas mixing plan drawn up by the four nations of the UK.
According to YouGov, support for tougher rules over Christmas than currently allowed is relatively consistent across region, class and gender.
Labour supporters are more in favour of maintaining restrictions at Christmas than Conservatives, YouGov found. And Lib Dem supporters are most in favour (making them, on this, the most illiberal).
According to the YouGov figures, opinion is most likely to vary by age. But even among 25 to 49-year-olds, the age group most in favour of relaxing the rules at Christmas, only 38% back the government plan, and 49% think it would be better to continue with the current, tougher rules over the holiday.
All of this supports a theory my colleague John Harris floated on Twitter earlier.
Part of the Christmas/Covid problem is: Politicians with no instinct for the popular mood and a fear of the public believe a caricature sold by parts of the right wing press. The 'oi! save our Christmas' stuff we will soon be reading again represents fewer people than some think
— John Harris (@johnharris1969) December 15, 2020
Updated
Huge disparities in the amount of classroom time pupils have received across England since schools re-opened in September have been revealed for the first time by stark new figures on school attendance.
Attendance ranged from 37% in the Midlands borough of Sandwell to 92% in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, during one week alone, according to the first breakdown of missed school days by council area.
The 10 boroughs in England where children’s education has been most disrupted since schools re-opened following six months of lockdown are all areas where deprivation is worse than the national average.
In Oldham, one of the worst-hit areas, one headteacher said “self harm has gone through the roof” after almost 200 Year 11s missed five weeks of learning.
Concern that schools in the worst-hit local areas are getting a “quadruple hit” was voiced by the children’s commissioner, Anne Longfield, who said that disruption to attendance and increased pandemic costs came on top of existing poorer educational outcomes and deprivation.
Updated
Covid-related deaths in UK pass 81,000
The UK-wide coronavirus death toll has passed 81,000.
The total number of Covid-related deaths across the UK as per the three statistical agencies, the ONS, National Records for Scotland and NISRA, which count all deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate, now stands at 78,256.
A further 3,031 deaths have occurred since these agencies last reported, bringing the overall Covid death toll across the UK since the pandemic began to 81,287.
The figure is higher than the government’s Covid death toll of 64,908. The latter figure only covers people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.
Updated
UK records 18,450 new cases and hospital admissions continue to rise
The UK government has updated its coronavirus dashboard. Here are the key figures.
- The UK has recorded 18,450 further cases. That is below yesterday’s total (20,263), but well above the daily total for a week ago today (12,282). Over the last seven days there have been 137,876 positive cases - a 29% increase on the total for the previous week, even though the number of tests being carried out has only increased 5.5% week on week.
- Hospital admissions are also going up. The most recent UK figure is for last Friday, when there were 1,637 admissions, and at that point week-on-week admissions were up 15%.
-
The UK has recorded 506 further deaths. That is more than double the total for yesterday (232) but less than the total for a week ago today (616). Over the last seven days there have been 2,874 deaths - 4% down on the total for the previous week.
Updated
NHS England has recorded 293 further coronavirus hospital deaths. There were 75 in the north-east and Yorkshire, 63 in the Midlands, 55 in the north-west, 35 in the south-east, 31 in London, 21 in the south-west and 13 in the east of England. The details are here.
A week ago today the equivalent figure was 325.
Despite the soaring rates of Covid-19 in Wales, the first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said 16% of acute beds in the Welsh NHS are not occupied. He said physical capacity was “stretched” but not to breaking point.
But he has said the most pressing problem is staff numbers with 1,500 more NHS workers off than in September – the reason why some non-urgent operations are being postponed.
“We simply don’t have staff in place to keep everything the health service wants to do going,” he said.
Drakeford did not say whether he would take up the UK government’s offer to treat some non-Covid patients in England. (See 12.45pm.) Asked about the offer at first minister’s questions he said a mutual aid system had operated through the Covid crisis, which included Wales sending 11m items of PPE to England.
Updated
This blog often starts in the morning with quotes from whichever minister was put up by No 10 to do the morning broadcast interview round. As my colleague Peter Walker reports, it’s almost never a woman.
By my reckoning, it's at least a month, possibly a fair bit longer, since the government put up a female minister for the morning broadcast round – ie being that day's face of the government. Seems like the departure of Cummings hasn't seen the end of the No 10 boys' club.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) December 15, 2020
I'm assessing this by the PR emails we get from radio stations announcing their guests, six days a week (not Sat). Going back to 13 November – as far as my deleted emails take me – there is *not one* female minister who did the morning broadcast round.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) December 15, 2020
Instead we had Hancock (4 times), Raab (3), Eustice (3), Sunak (1), Sharma (3), Barclay (2), Dowden (1), Shapps (2), Gove (2), Cleverly (1), Jenrick (2), Wallace (1), Williamson (1), and no one (2).
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) December 15, 2020
It's always possible I missed a female minister, but I don't think so.
Ofqual chair resigns after 'very difficult summer' marked by grades fiasco
The chair of the exams regulator in England, Roger Taylor, is to stand down at the end of the year after what he described as “a very difficult summer”.
Taylor was at the centre of the furore that followed the summer exams fiasco, and saw the government abandon GCSEs and A-level grades determined by Ofqual’s algorithm, in favour of school-assessed grades.
As a blame-game got under way, the Guardian revealed that Taylor issued an ultimatum threatening to quit unless the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, gave the exams regulator his full backing. While Taylor stayed on in the immediate aftermath, Ofqual’s chief regulator Sally Collier resigned soon after results were published in August.
Announcing his resignation, Taylor said:
After what has been a very difficult summer, I am leaving the organisation in good shape and in good hands.
We have put in place measures for young people sitting exams in 2021 which represent the best approach in these difficult times.
Taylor, who has been Ofqual chair since 2016, will be replaced temporarily by an interim chair, Ian Bauckham, who has been on the Ofqual board since 2018.
Updated
People more likely to view Christmas rules as too lax than about right, poll suggests
If ministers from the UK government and the devolved administrations do decide to tighten the rules over Christmas, they will encounter little public opposition, a poll for Ipsos MORI (pdf) suggests. It says that while 39% of people think the Christmas rules are “about right”, 49% think they are “not strict enough”. Only 10% says they are “too strict”.
Labour supporters (56%) are significantly more likely to say the rules should be stricter than Conservatives (41%).
Cummings' pay rise 'an insult to key workers', says Labour
This is from Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, on Dominic Cummings’ huge pay rise when he worked for No 10. (See 3.34pm.) She said:
Boris Johnson defended Dominic Cummings when he broke lockdown rules - then awarded him a £50,000 pay rise. Yet he’s freezing pay for key workers and refusing to give our care workers a pay rise to the living wage.
Cummings’ bumper bonus is an insult to key workers denied the pay rise they deserve. It’s another example of how under this government it is one rule for the Tory Party and their friends and another for the rest of us.
Dominic Cummings received pay rise worth at least £40,000 while at No 10, report reveals
Dominic Cummings was handed a pay rise of at least £40,000 for his role as the prime minister’s top adviser, new figures suggest.
Cummings – whose trip to Durham during the height of the first national Covid-19 lockdown prompted an outcry – was paid between £95,000-£99,999 in 2019 but a report reveals his pay packet was bumped up to £140,000-£144,999 this year.
The disclosure is included in the publication of a Cabinet Office report (pdf) which details the £9.6m total cost – including salary, national insurance and pension contributions – for 102 government special advisers – referred to in Westminster as Spads – from April 2019 to March 2020.
Last month, it emerged that Cummings was leaving his No 10 post, as was his ally, the communications chief, Lee Cain. The Cabinet Office report states: “Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings are in the process of leaving their government posts and are not included in the above list. They are, however, included in the December FTE numbers. Both individuals were in PB4 and pay band £140,000-£144,999.”
Meanwhile, the newly appointed No 10 press secretary, Allegra Stratton, who will be fronting televised Downing Street briefings next year, earns between £125,000 and £129,999, according to the report.
Updated
Sturgeon says if necessary Scotland would diverge from four nations approach to Christmas
In her statement to the Scottish parliament, Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said that the rise in Covid cases, which is currently less severe in Scotland than parts of England and Wales, but also news about the new variant, made this afternoon’s four nations call about the Christmas rules “sensible”. She went on:
I’m not going into it with a fixed view because I think it’s important we have that discussion across the four nations given family patterns across the UK, but I do think there is a case for us looking at whether we tighten the flexibilities that were given any further both in terms of duration and numbers of people meeting.
She said that it would be preferable to come to a four nations agreement but said that, if that were not possible, “of course we would consider within the Scottish government what we think is appropriate”.
Updated
Here is a summary of the main points in Nicola Sturgeon’s statement to MSPs about coronavirus.
- Sturgeon said the Scottish government was considering tightening the rules covering Christmas. (See 2.42pm.)
- She said nine cases of the new variant of the coronavirus had been discovered in Scotland, all in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
- She announced the results of the latest review of the Covid levels. All 18 areas in level 3 would remain in level 3, she said. East Lothian, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire will move from level 2 to level 3, she said. Other areas in level 2 would stay there, she said, although she warned that Angus and Falkirk could return to level 3. She also said that the household mixing rules for Argyll & Bute would be changed, so that the outer Argyll islands will covered by the same rules as other islands, and people on these islands will be allowed to meet in homes in groups of up to six, from a maximum of two homes. The full local protection levels are here.
- She said that, although this had been planned as the last review of what areas were in what levels before Christmas - in light of “volatile” case numbers in some areas - there will be another review next Tuesday.
- She said over the next two weeks the government would consider whether to change the restrictions that apply at each level. The conclusions would be announced after Christmas, she said.
- She announced the daily coronavirus statistics. There have been 845 new cases (which is 7.4% of tests carried out; there are 996 people in hospital, down 16 from the previous day; and there have been 24 further deaths.
- She said the Scottish government would publish its first weekly progress report on the vaccination programme tomorrow.
Updated
Sturgeon says Scottish government considering if tighter rules required over Christmas
In Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has just told MSPs that her government is considering whether any “additional precautions are necessary” over Christmas in the light of what has emerged about the new variant of the coronavirus, which may be causing the virus to spread more quickly.
She said she would be discussing this with the other four nation governments in a call this afternoon which she said she requested yesterday.
Updated
'If we relax the rules [at Christmas], it will hurt badly' - senior London hospital executive
A senior source at a London hospital trust expressed astonishment that the government was planning to relax the rules for Christmas and warned it would lead to “disaster”. The senior executive said:
I know I may come across as a Scrooge when I say this but if we relax the rules, it will hurt badly. Travelling and mixing households are the right ingredients for disaster.
We are already seeing the figures rising in London, things are already looking quite bad. Relaxing the rules will only make it worse.
London will move into Tier 3 restrictions at midnight tonight.
Hospitals will inevitably have to cancel surgery if the five-day Christmas release from the rules leads to even more beds filling up with people who have got Covid as a direct result of the temporarily permitted mingling, the executive added.
We are doing our very best to keep all our services open but if we get more Covid-19 cases we may have to shut down some services again and this will be to the detriment of the country. I would like to see a more rational approach.
These comments reflect widespread and mounting anxiety and alarm among hospital bosses that the Christmas plan is misguided and could leave hospitals struggling in January and February - which are usually their busiest months anyway - to cope with a new influx of Covid patients.
Updated
Welsh first minister says tightening Christmas rules runs risk of 'free-for-all'
The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said harm will be done whether the four-nation Christmas arrangements are kept as they are or changed.
Speaking in the Welsh parliament, he said:
I will be discussing with Michael Gove whether the four nation agreement that we struck continues to have marginally more advantages than disadvantages or whether there is a different balance that we ought to strike. In either direction harm is done.
The four nation agreement over Christmas was hammered out in detail over four meetings between the nations. It was a hard-won agreement. I will not lightly put it aside.
The choice is a grim one. I have read in my own email account heart-rending pleas from people not to reverse what we have agreed for Christmas. People who live entirely alone who have made arrangements to be with people for the first time in months and who say to me this is the only thing they have been able to look forward to.
Yet we know that if people do not use the modest amount of additional freedom responsibly then we will see an impact on our already hugely hard-pressed health service. The choice is an incredibly difficult one. At the moment we have a four nation agreement. We will look at the figures again together.
Drakeford seemed to still be backing the four-nations arrangement. He said:
Modestly increased amount of freedom for people is preferable to a free-for-all in which we see a situation in which people aren’t willing to go along with what is proposed.
Whichever way the governments of the UK resolve this issue it will be a very finely balanced set of judgements between different sets of harms.
On Sky News Sam Coates, its deputy political editor, produced a useful list of the options available to Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, as they consider whether or not to rethink the rules for mixing over Christmas. He suggested there were five options.
1) Sticking with the rules as they are, but toughening up the advice that people should exercise restraint - and do less mixing than is allowed if they can.
2) Shortening the window during which mixing is allowed from its current five days.
3) Reducing the number of households allowed to mix from three to two.
4) Maintaining the mixing rules, but telling people not to travel outside their region.
5) Moving the holiday entirely to a different time of the year.
The final idea seems the most unlikely, although it has been floated on social media.
Serious question, could we not just have a National Covid xmas/eid/Hanukkah/Diwali in Spring? ✨
— Dr Sonia Adesara (@SoniaAdesara) November 23, 2020
(Post vaccine roll-out)
I’m suggesting a one off 3-day National holiday
Extra sparkly clothes
Compulsory over eating & falling out with the racist uncle
Not killing anyone 🙏🏽
Gove to discuss Christmas mixing rules with devolved administrations as No 10 says advice 'kept under review'
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, in response to questions about the the joint BMJ/HSJ editorial (see 10.45am), the prime minister’s spokesman said that the advice being given to people about mixing at Christmas was being kept under review. He said:
We have set out the guidance for the Christmas bubbling arrangements. But ... we obviously keep all advice under constant review.
In Whitehall-speak, when it is said a policy is being kept under review, that can mean anything from ‘We have no intention to change the policy at all, but we just want to sound reasonable’ to ‘There’s a U-turn coming shortly’. The spokesman’s comment at the briefing sounded a bit closer to the later than the former, but it was hard to be sure.
According to PA Media, Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, will discuss the Christmas rules with the leaders of the devolved administrations later this afternoon.
Jeremy Hunt, the chair of the Commons health committee, has just told Radio 4’s World at One that the government should listen “very, very carefully” to the arguments made in the joint BMJ/HSJ editorial saying the government should abandon plans to allow social mixing over Christmas. (See 10.45am.) He said:
To go into the start of January, which I remember from my own time as health secretary is always the nightmare period for the NHS, with the same number of beds taken up by Covid as was the case in the peak of this April, would be a very, very dangerous and precarious situation.
But, when asked if he was saying that Boris Johnson should definitely change the rules now for Christmas, Hunt just said that he would say do this if Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser, called for it. But he admitted that he did not know what advice they were giving.
At the No 10 press conference on Monday, Whitty admitted that Christmas was a period of greater risk, but he defended the four-nation rules, saying they sought to strike a balance between minimising risk and accommodating people’s desire to see relatives.
Updated
The eye-catching fines proposed by the government’s new online harms bill, which could be as high as £5bn for a company the size of Facebook, led the headlines, but the detail of the legislation has left some concerned that it could have unintended consequences.
The legislation, which is being presented before the House of Commons today, explicitly excludes journalism from its coverage – a point that had concerned some news organisations who worried that the presence of comment sections on their websites could leave them open to swingeing fines.
But it provides no such shield for news outlets acting off-platform, on Facebook, Twitter or other social networks. There, the platforms could face fines if they fail to censor news articles, Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, warned. He said:
Once news content is posted to social media, it will not be possible to separate commentary from the news content. If commentary is censored, or circulation reduced, then the same is true for the news content. It seems unlikely that a solution can be found.
Once the door is open to regulate online speech through a state regulator, it is only a matter of time before the same question opens regarding the press.
Killock also flagged another sort of mission-creep in the bill: social networks have no indemnity for content which is shared in encrypted channels that they cannot monitor. That raises the prospect of WhatsApp facing the decision of either turning off its encryption in order to moderate conversations, or pulling out of the UK entirely – and the company has hinted it would prefer the latter if it came down to it.
Encrypted communications have been a frustration for the Home Office ever since the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which theoretically gave the government the power to compel decryption – a power that it has not yet used, for fear of triggering a standoff it may not win.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has welcomed the decision to roll out rapid result tests in all secondary schools in England from January. (See 12.26pm.) He said:
Alongside council leaders, I’ve been calling for this to stop the virus spreading and to save lives. Despite the efforts of teachers and school staff, we’ve seen a worrying rise in cases among young people. This will help keep education open safely in the new year.
Starmer urges PM to show 'leadership' and rethink social mixing rules for Christmas
Labour has called on the government to rethink its decision to allow households to mix over five days at Christmas, saying the consequences could be unthinkable.
In a letter to the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer urged Boris Johnson to convene Cobra, the government’s emergency committee, and said Labour would support the government if they were to change the rules.
“This is a critical moment for our country. The failure of your tiered system to control the virus leaves us with precious little headroom,” Starmer wrote. “Put simply, if you take the wrong decision now, the ramifications for our NHS and our economy in the new year could be severe.”
Here are extracts from the letter.
It has become increasingly clear over recent days that the tier system you introduced two weeks ago has failed to control transmission of Covid-19. Sadly, it does now appear that the government has - once again - lost control of infections, putting our economy and our NHS at grave risk in the new year ...
I welcomed the fact that the government had sought a four-nation approach on the arrangements over the Christmas period. I understand that people want to spend time with their families after this awful year, but the situation has clearly taken a turn for the worse since the decision about Christmas was taken. It serves no-one for politicians to ignore this fact.
It is my view that you should now convene Cobra in the next 24 hours to review whether the current relaxation is appropriate given the rising number of cases. If you conclude with government scientists that we need to take tougher action to keep people safe over Christmas, then you will have my support.
Any further tightening of restrictions will obviously be deeply disappointing to many across the country. Many will have already started planning for Christmas and would have held on to the prospect of a happy day with family and loved ones to get us through these tough months. But the public do not want false reassurance, warm words or ducked challenges from their prime minister. They want leadership.
This is a critical moment for our country. The tiered system has not kept the virus under control and has left us with precious little headroom. Put simply, if you take the wrong decision now, the ramifications for our NHS and our economy in the new year could be severe.
Updated
Hancock says Welsh patients could be treated in England if Welsh hospitals need to postpone non-urgent operations
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, have written a joint letter to Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, offering to treat patients needing non-urgent operations in England. They have made this offer because some health boards in Wales are considering postponing these procedures because of the pandemic. Sky’s Sam Coates has the letter.
Welsh Secretary Simon Hart and Health Secretary Matt Hancock write to Mark Drakeford:
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) December 15, 2020
Don’t cancel non-Covid operations - the UK government will step in to offer support if you need it pic.twitter.com/KTEMXltot8
An academy chief accused of a deliberate strategy of exclusions has been challenged by MPs on her fitness to be the new children’s commissioner, with the Tory chair of the Commons education committee expressing concern that she owed her success to a “survival of the fittest” tactic.
Grilled by MPs ahead of taking up the watchdog role next year, Dame Rachel de Souza insisted that her experience of dealing with high rates of exclusions “and putting them right” made her the right person for the job.
She added meanwhile that she would have strongly sympathised with the view that it should have been compulsory for disadvantaged children to be enrolled in schools during the first lockdown.
“Thinking of how hard people worked for compulsory education in the 1980s, to see schools closed in my lifetime is, I think, an absolute disaster,” said De Souza. On low attendance rates among vulnerable children during the first lockdown, she added that “a bit of me would have loved it to be compulsory.”
The founding chief executive of the Inspiration Trust, which runs 14 academies in East Anglia, has been criticised over high numbers of permanent exclusions in the past. There were 21 fixed-period exclusions at the trust’s eight secondary schools for every 100 pupils last year, a figure double the national average.
Robert Halfon, the committee chair, asked how she could reconcile that track record with the commissioner’s role of being a champion for disadvantaged children and those with special needs, who were more likely to be excluded. He told her:
I just have a worry that you have had great success ... but it’s also that it’s been about survival of the fittest.
De Souza said she would embrace the role, adding that her trust had pulled together and achieved a position of “zero exclusions”.
Updated
All secondary schools in England to get rapid result tests from January to reduce need for self-isolation
Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, has announced that every secondary school and college in England will be able to use later flow tests (the ones that deliver rapid results) from January to test pupils and staff. In a news release the Department for Education says:
Building on the success of testing pilots in schools and colleges over the past few months, from January all staff in secondary schools and colleges will be eligible for weekly rapid tests as part of an initial rollout.
Students will be eligible for daily testing for seven days if they are identified as a close contact of someone who has tested positive. Under current guidelines, up to a whole school bubble has to self-isolate if one student or staff member tests positive. From January, those in the same bubble not need to self-isolate if they agree to be tested once a day. This will improve attendance and ensure young people can benefit from face-to-face teaching as much as possible.
Staff will also be eligible for daily testing if they are identified as a close contact.
Roughly one in three people have the virus without symptoms so could be spreading the disease unknowingly. Asymptomatic testing helps to identify positive cases more quickly, and break chains of transmission.
Special needs schools will also get the tests. Testing will then be rolled out for primary schools “as quickly as possible over the spring term”, the department said.
Williamson said this was “a milestone moment” for schools. He said:
Testing on this scale brings real benefits to education, it means more children, teachers and staff can stay in their classes in schools and colleges without the need to self-isolate.
The department said “guidance, training materials and webinars” would shortly be made available for schools, so they know how to use the tests, and test kits will start arriving in schools and colleges in the first week of January.
It also said that staff or pupils who do not want to undergo daily tests because they have been identified as a close contact of someone testing positive will be able to self-isolate instead, as now.
The department says pilots of this system had shown that it enabled staff and pupils who would otherwise have had to self-isolate to remain in school.
School staff will not be expected to work on the new arrangements over the Christmas holidays, the department said, and schools will be reimbursed for “reasonable administrative costs such as staff time”.
Updated
The prevalence of coronavirus in some parts of England, including London, began to rise in late November, data reveals, suggesting people started to relax their guard before the second lockdown ended.
The React-1 study, which is based on swab tests from randomly selected people across the 315 local authority areas in England, has been carried out every month since May, with the latest results – round seven – based on swabs taken from almost 170,000 people between 13 November and 3 December.
Interim results, for 13-24 November showed a national prevalence of 96 people per 10,000 – about 30% lower than between 26 October to 2 November, when 132 per 10,000 people were thought to have Covid.
But such gains appear to be eroding: the team found the sharp decline was no longer present in the second half of the latest round, covering 25 November and 3 December.
“What we’ve seen here is a levelling off [at a national level],” said Prof Steven Riley, professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics at Imperial College London and a co-author of the study.
However the national mixture marks geographical differences: while prevalence fell across England between round 6 and the first half of round 7, albeit to a greater extent in the north than the south, it did not continue to decline in all parts of the country. Instead prevalence began to rise towards the end of lockdown in some areas, including parts of London .
“We do know from mobility data that things picked up over that latter period,” said Prof Paul Elliott, director of the REACT programme, and chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at Imperial College London. “We know how the virus is transmitted, it is more contact – more close contacts – which cause that rise in transmission.”
The results are likely to be of particular concern, given that Christmas is just a couple of weeks away – a time that often involves mixing between generations within families. “I think people do understand they are taking a risk [if they mix],” said Riley. “What these data show is the risk they are taking has increased.”
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Boris Johnson has announced that he is visiting India in January. It is his first major overseas visit since becoming prime minister 17 months ago (there have been Brexit and Covid) and he will become only the second British PM to attend India’s annual Republic Day parade in New Delhi. The first was John Major in 1993.
In the No 10 news release, Downing Street also confirms that India has been invited to attend the G7 summit that Johnson will host next year, along with South Korea and Australia. This is from my colleague Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.
No 10: Boris Johnson has invited India, Australia and Korea to attend the Summit of G7 industrialised nation next summer turning the UK hosted event into a group of 10 democracies, the so-called D10. He will visit India next month, as part of a UK tilt towards the Indo-Pacific.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) December 15, 2020
Greenwich accepts Gavin Williamson's order for schools to stay open despite Covid cases worsening
Yesterday Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, took legal action to stop Greenwich council in London closing schools early ahead of the Christmas holidays. Sally Weale and Ben Quinn covered the story last night.
Danny Thorpe, the Labour leader of Greenwich council, has this morning released an open letter to parents saying that, while he disagrees with Williamson’s decision, he does not think it would be justified spending public money fighting it in the courts. So he is asking schools to stay open, he says.
Following the Government’s legal direction, here is an open letter to families in #greenwich. My main priority has always been children & families across @Royal_Greenwich not a courtroom battle with the Government, and I acted based on data that shows rising cases of #covid19 pic.twitter.com/75N6n00OU9
— Dan Thorpe (@DanLThorpe) December 15, 2020
But, in his letter, Thorpe also defends his initial proposal, saying the situation in the borough “continues to worsen”. He says:
On Friday the weekly figures were grim. Officers advised me that new cases in Royal Greenwich “are significantly higher than we have recorded on previous weeks, an approximate 40-50% increase”. At that time, there were 3,670 children in self isolation and 314 teaching staff …
That information continues to worsen.
On Monday, an additional 498 children went in to self-isolation and the latest data we have showed a further rise in numbers. The figures showed that in Royal Greenwich our rates of infection were increasing more quickly than the London average and we were 12th out of the 32 London boroughs in terms of the infection rates across the city.
Perhaps it’s a shame that Williamson’s direction to the council will never be challenged in court. According to the FT’s legal commentator David Allen Green, the education secretary’s legal arguments are so poor that “if I were still a government lawyer I would have been embarrassed to have prepared this for a minister”. Here’s a tweet from him with a link to his blog explaining why.
The shoddy legal direction of Gavin Williamson to Greenwich Council
— davidallengreen (@davidallengreen) December 15, 2020
My critical analysis of the direction letter sent by the Secretary of State to Greenwich Council and why it should not be the basis of a mandatory injunctionhttps://t.co/9mrhGP3rtO pic.twitter.com/OWs75iYwVk
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Businesses in Northern Ireland have proposed more than 10,000 redundancies since March, a record number that reveals the dramatic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the region’s economy.
The total number of proposed redundancies for the past 12 months was 10,720, more than double the number recorded in the previous 12 months, according to official statistics. Companies proposed 1,370 layoffs in November, an increase on October.
Northern Ireland’s unemployment rate is now 3.9%. This is still below the UK’s rate of 4.9% but Northern Ireland lags the rest of the UK in per capita income and productivity, leaving it more vulnerable to shocks from the pandemic and Brexit.
Ulster Bank’s chief economist, Richard Ramsey, said weak order numbers signalled little improvement in private sector activity in the short term. “With the end of the Brexit transition rapidly approaching, the implications of a UK-EU deal/no-deal will have a major bearing on business performance and confidence in 2021 and beyond,” he said.
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Allowing household mixing at Christmas 'major error that will cost many lives', say health experts
In a joint editorial, the British Medical Journal and the Health Service Journal, two of the most respected health publications in the UK, have urged the government to abandon plans to allow households to mix at Christmas.
The editorial says allowing up to three household to mix over Christmas, as planned, would be a “major error that will cost many lives”. It says:
Members of the public can and should mitigate the impact of the third wave by being as careful as possible over the next few months. But many will see the lifting of restrictions over Christmas as permission to drop their guard. The government was too slow to introduce restrictions in the spring and again in the autumn. It should now reverse its rash decision to allow household mixing and instead extend the tiers over the five-day Christmas period in order to bring numbers down in the advance of a likely third wave. It should also review and strengthen the tier structure, which has failed to suppress rates of infection and hospitalisation.
This joint editorial is only the second in the more than 100-year histories of the BMJ and HSJ. We are publishing it because we believe the government is about to blunder into another major error that will cost many lives. If our political leaders fail to take swift and decisive action, they can no longer claim to be “protecting the NHS”.
It says that when the Christmas rules were agreed at the end of November, it was assumed that, as a result of the lockdown, Covid-related demand on the NHS would be decreasing in the run-up to Christmas. But instead it is rising, the editorial says, and it says hospitals in England are on course to have 19,000 Covid patients by New Year’s eve – roughly the same number as at the peak of the pandemic on 12 April.
England went into lockdown on November 5 and the number of inpatients with Covid-19 began to fall, down to 12,968 on December 5. If this rate of decline had continued, the English NHS would have been on course for just under 11,000 Covid-19 inpatients on 31 December. However, in the past two weeks, despite most of the country being in tiers 2 or 3, numbers of inpatients have started to rise again. By December 14 (the latest data available) Covid bed occupancy had climbed back to 15,053.
Unless something happens to change this trajectory, hospitals in England will have just short of 19,000 Covid patients on New Year’s Eve. This figure, derived by extrapolating a straight line from December 5 to December 14 through to December 31, would be almost exactly the same as the 18,974 peak of the first wave on April 12.
And it says the main impact will be felt by non-Covid patients.
A significant third wave could wipe out almost all the reductions in waiting times for elective procedures achieved in the past 20 years. Average waiting times are on course to reach 12 months by March next year. This will take years to recover from, at the cost of much suffering and loss of life.
There is a full text of the editorial, signed by Alastair McLellan, the HSJ editor, and Fiona Godlee, the BMJ editor-in-chief, at HuffPost here.
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Today’s ONS figures for England and Wales show a slight fall in Covid-related deaths (see 10am), but overall deaths in the week ending 4 December were still 15% higher than would usually occur in the same week when compared to the five-year-average.
The number of registered deaths was higher than normal in all English regions and Wales for the fourth week in a row. The largest increase on the five-year average was in Yorkshire and the Humber.
Here is the chart showing all deaths by region, compared to the five-year average (the broken grey line).
And here are the regional excess death figures for the week ending 4 December.
Of those 2,835 deaths in England and Wales in the week ending 4 December mentioning Covid on the death certificate, in 2,469 cases (87.1%) it was recorded as the underlying cause of death. Three-quarters of deaths involving Covid-19 were in people aged 75 years and over.
Covid-related deaths in England falling for first time in three months in early December, says ONS
The Office for National Statistics has published its weekly death figures for England and Wales. It covers the week ending 4 December (the week ending the Friday before last – or week 49, in ONS jargon). Here are the key points.
- Covid-related deaths in England and Wales fell at the start of December for the first time in three months. There were 2,835 deaths in the week ending 4 December where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate, accounting for 23% of deaths in England and Wales. That was 205 fewer than the previous week, and the first decrease in Covid-related deaths since the week ending 4 September.
- Covid-related deaths in England alone also fell at the start of December for the first time in three months to 2,623. Covid-related deaths fell in all English regions except for the West Midlands, the east of England and London.
- Covid-related deaths in Wales fell for the second week in a row in the week ending 4 December.
- Excess deaths – the number of deaths above the five-year norm for this time of year – were running at 15% in the week ending 4 December.
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UK redundancies rise to record high amid second Covid-19 wave
The number of people being made redundant in the UK soared to a record high in October amid the second coronavirus wave and as the government scaled back its furlough scheme before an 11th-hour extension, my colleague Richard Partington reports.
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Sadiq Khan tells ministers to 'follow the science' and tighten Christmas Covid rules
Good morning. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has been touring the broadcast studios this morning and he has been urging the government to rethink its decision to relax Covid restrictions over Christmas. This is what he told the Today programme:
We heard from Matt Hancock [the health secretary] yesterday that it appears the government is looking at this again. I would encourage them to do so if they are. The concern is this - the rules have been relaxed for five days, allowing household mixing for up to three different households and inevitably when people are in their own households, they tend to be less vigilant. And my concern is that many people may have the virus and not realise it. They could pass the virus on to older relations.
And he went even further on Sky News. When the presenter, Niall Paterson, invited Khan to be a “Grinch” and to say that it would be best to cancel Christmas, and to close the five-day window opened by the government, Khan replied:
You’re not being Grinch at all. I think what you’re doing is following the science. And actually what we’ve seen across the Europe, and across the world, is those countries that are more effective at dealing with this virus having shorter more restrictive measures that help health and wealth.
So look at Germany and the Netherlands; they’re not for relaxing the rules over Christmas allowing three households to mix with unlimited numbers.
Khan studiously avoided saying what he would like the rules for Christmas to be. But in saying that they should be tighter than currently planned, he is only echoing what scientists, medics and some Conservative MPs are saying. This is likely to be an increasingly difficult question for the government over the next few days. According to today’s Daily Mail splash, urgent talks on this are already underway in Westminster.
Tuesday’s Mail:
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) December 14, 2020
“Christmas in jeopardy?”
#BBCPapers #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/HQPPAjCPvf
Of course, this is not just a UK government decision. The four nations of the UK agreed a common approach because families travel across the country to meet up at Christmas. But when the rules were announced Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, and Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, were notably cautious, stressing that what people were allowed to do and what people should do were not the same. At the time UK government ministers were less downbeat, although that is now changing.
Downing Street is saying it has “no plans” to change the rule, although it is not firmly ruling out tighter restrictions. The Welsh government said yesterday that, notwithstanding the four nations approach, it might have a rethink.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.
9.30am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.
10pm: Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, gives a speech to a Child Poverty Action Group webinar.
12pm: Downing Street holds its daily lobby briefing.
12pm: The Department for Education publishes its latest school attendance figures.
12.30pm: Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, makes a Commons statement about the online harms bill. As my colleague Alex Hern reports, social media companies will need to remove and limit the spread of harmful content or face fines of billions of pound.
2.20pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, gives a statement to MSPs about coronavirus.
Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, like Brexit, and when they seem more important or more interesting, they will take precedence.
Here is our global coronavirus live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
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